At the end of a tiring day filled with meetings, MA Baby sits in front of his laptop for one final interview. He seems to be quickly adapting to his weighty new role as general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). Showing no signs of exhaustion and carrying the air of friendliness he is known for, Baby declares he is not all that tech-savvy.
When computers became common in the sub-continent at the turn of the 90s, Baby would have been in his mid 30s, occupied with the daily grind of a parliamentarian. He had slowly climbed the ladder, beginning as a student leader, imprisoned during the Emergency and elected a Member of Parliament in the Upper House. After his Rajya Sabha years in the 80s and 90s – 11 of them – he floated to his home ground in Kerala, contested elections, became a legislator and then a Minister.
Five eventful years in the state government, led by the grand old Marxist VS Achuthanandan, made Baby’s name unforgettable. He became a go-to man for anything related to culture or education, the two departments he headed between 2006 and 2011. He was instrumental in bringing the Biennale to Kochi. Even after the government changed hands, Baby remained the legislator of Kundara in Kollam till 2014, the year he lost a Lok Sabha election. He refused to contest again.
Now, at 71, he is filling a big void left behind by that charismatic political figure Sitaram Yechury, widely respected and called a friend even among his rivals. Yechury’s death last September was much mourned across the country. It is an irreparable loss, Baby says, that his friend and comrade is not around anymore. “He would have continued to be in the Politburo with us,” Baby says, alluding to the party’s decision to have only those who crossed the age of 75 to step down. Allowances were made, however, and a few exceptions – including for the 79 year old Chief Minister of Kerala Pinarayi Vijayan.
Kerala is the only Indian state where the Marxist party is in governance. Over the past decade and a half, the party lost power in two of its strongholds – West Bengal and Tripura. In Kerala, where voter preference toggles between the Congress and the CPI(M) led fronts every election, the Leftists managed to stay in office for two consecutive terms.
The word is office, not power, Baby insists. “The real power lies with the Union government. We enjoy restricted power,” he says, referring perhaps to the attacks on federalism by the Union government. He vents out freely about the dangers of the continued governance of the “fascist RSS-controlled BJP”. Baby doesn't mince words while criticising the Rashtriya Swayamsevakh Sangh, parent organisation of the Bharatiya Janata Party, always prefixing it with the word ‘fascist’.
“The first task [in his new role] is to see that the broadest possible platform is developed and strengthened to fight against the fascistic RSS-controlled BJP government at the national-level. And many Indian states including the large state of UP. The second task is to strengthen the independent influence and striking power of the CPI(M) primarily and other Left democratic forces, related to the first task,” he says.
Like the human body, Indian society is filled with cells and the “fascist RSS” was injecting communal poison into every one of those cells, Baby laments. Known for his wide reading and articulation skills, Baby admitted in a recent press conference that he had to learn to shorten his speeches.
He appears to have learnt the trick already, sticking fiercely to his point, of the need to bring down the enemy. Tools have to be developed to fight the “Hindutva authoritarian corporate nexus which is in control of the Indian state,” he says. Almost passionately he describes the task ahead – of detoxifying the Indian society of this communal poison – as a protracted, cultural and philosophical struggle. “It is also ideological, political and economical,” he adds.
About the INDIA bloc
He echoes similar visions for the INDIA bloc – Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance – formed by a number of secular political parties in 2023 to fight the BJP-led union government together. There have been no meetings of the bloc since the election last year, Baby says.
He speaks of the arrangement as a ‘bloc’ since an alliance would mean they fight together in every state, while this is not the case. In Delhi, the election battle between two components of the INDIA bloc – Aam Aadmi Party and Congress – had allowed the BJP to win, Baby says. In Kerala too, the Congress and the Left parties have historically fought each other and continued to do so in the last general election. But this is one state where the BJP has had little presence in, winning a lone Assembly seat in 2016 (which they later lost) and the first Lok Sabha seat as late as 2024.
“Our view is that the INDIA bloc needs to be strengthened, with some political perspective of fighting with the fascistic RSS and their allies. We should have an uncompromising fight against various forms of communalism – not only represented by the RSS, but also certain minority communal forces in our country. They are not as dangerous as the fascistic RSS but the latter assumes justification from their existence,” Baby says.
The economic policies of the various non-Left parties in the INDIA bloc are also not clear, he says, and this leads the Leftists to take a critical stance within the bloc. “We wish and hope that the INDIA bloc would be revived and strengthened. The CPI(M) will not be found wanting in contributing towards making the INDIA bloc an active political entity,” Baby says.
I am a feminist: Baby
He also addresses the oft-asked question of representation within the party. For all its take on equality, the party has never had a woman at the top, never a Chief Minister in the states it ruled. There has not even been a woman district secretary for a party that is much known for its organisational structure. Baby, in his press conference on April 8, admitted this major flaw and linked it to the patriarchal psyche of Indian society. At most of our houses, the senior male figure would ask for a cup of tea, have it brought to him, but would not even take the effort to bring it back to the kitchen and wash it, he said.
In his personal life, he is a feminist, he tells TNM. When a child was born to him and his partner Betty, they decided to call him Ashok Betty, not Ashok Baby. If they had a second child they might have given it Baby’s name, but that did not happen, he says.
“Women hold half of the sky but society refuses to recognise it. Women are underpaid, and the work done by women is never calculated. More than 50% of all the labour is undertaken by women, including the work they do as labourers and officers and all, plus the work they do at home. These are ignored by a patriarchal society and women are always denied their rightful due.”
Caste and women representation in the party
After the last party Congress – held in April in Madurai – the percentage of women in the Central Committee had a miniscule increase from 17 to 20. It is far from enough, concedes Baby. “There is some difference between the neglect that women suffer and the neglect suffered by various social groups. No section should suffer such neglect. So far as women are concerned they deserve to be [represented by] at least 50%.”
Caste too has been a sensitive subject that the party is often criticised for. It is only fairly recently – in 2022 – that the Politburo got its first Dalit member, Ram Chandra Dome. “Our approach is that the social reality should be reflected in different levels of the party. The depressed sections within the society, those sections being marginalised – they should be identified and uplifted so they can be integrated into the leading committees of the party,” he says.
Twice, there have been whispers of a woman Chief Minister from the CPI(M) taking office, but both times they proved wrong. Gouri Amma, veteran politician who lived to a century and was part of the first elected government of Kerala, was rumoured to take the reins in 1987. But it was EK Nayanar, a crowd favourite, who finally assumed the post. In the last Assembly election, KK Shailaja’s name had briefly floated about until the party announced that none of the ministers, sparing the CM, would retain their posts in the second term.
About CM Pinarayi
Baby is unflinching in his praise of the CM, even as he is asked about the party’s continued terms in office and the apparent dependence on this leader. “He has been a very successful leader from the CPI(M). As the state party secretary he ensured the victory in 2006. Prior to that, when he was a minister in the EK Nayanar government, he had resigned to take up the responsibility of the party secretary. When he is giving effective leadership, has set a record by ensuring continuity of the government led by him, the natural choice for leadership is him.”
While he agrees that big leaders – such as EMS, AKG, Nayanar or Pinarayi Vijayan – would earn more acceptance and respect as they became more visible, holding the post of Chief Minister, it did not mean that they were running the show singlehandedly. “We have our State Secretariat and State Committee, we have our Politburo and Central Committee and every government led by CPI(M) leaders take guidance from the party at different levels. They submit to the criticism of committee members. Comrade Pinarayi Vijayan is the leader [in Kerala] but he works on the basis of the collective decision of the party leadership at different levels.”
About continuous terms in office
Baby admits that there is the possibility of “some alien tendencies which a working class party won’t accept or tolerate” to creep in, if the CPI(M) continued to be in office for so many years. “Foreseeing this possibility, every party committee analyses the work of those in the parliamentary and party fronts on the basis of criticism. This also includes self criticism. We have a rectification campaign within the party - rectification of mistakes, aberrations and shortcomings. If we are able to do both this effectively we can ward off the possibility of anti working class tendencies and value concepts creeping into our party organisation,” Baby says.
Alien tendencies, he explains, refer to the desires a working class party should not have, such as the desire to get position, the desire for more wealth and luxury, hedonistic tendencies which go against working class values.
The party congress also decided to be more welcoming in matters of faith, so they could reach out to the believers. Baby says that even during the time of the First International [Working Men’s Association] in 1864, Marx and Engels (key thinkers of Communism) had made it clear. Both of them corrected Mikhail Bakunin who said that the membership should be granted only to those workers who are atheists. "We should give membership to all workers who are willing to work and struggle for the betterment of the life of the workers, they said. You should not have belief systems as a criteria."
It is especially important now, Baby stresses, to take along the religious-minded at a time when communal forces are trying to take advantage of people's faith. "Religious people are not communal minded. We should not leave them to communal forces. We should mobilise believers into the fight against communalism."
In the same way, the party would reach out to the young, in the language they understood, he says. Talking about youth, the discussion moves on to the light-hearted topic of his name and how it has been a target of many puns over the years. Unmindful of it all, Baby says it is a loving name. “No one can have enmity with a baby. No one can ignore a baby. Everyone would listen to the words of a baby. I think myself and my party now have an advantage that a baby is a part of the leadership. There is no family without a baby, no society without a baby. So I will have entry and access to every family and every society and every segment of our country.”